No, Leonard doesn't play in these. I can recall one scrimmage a couple of years ago during which he spent the entire time standing next to June Jones, playfully asking the coach why his offense couldn't move the ball against Leonard's defensive guys.

His guys. "You get to know all of them," he said. He lives and dies with every hit by every sub -- guys who might not be back in the fall. Guys whose entire college-football experience might be a 60-play scrimmage on the last day of spring. Their hits bring him joy.

He feels it with them. Feels it through them. At one point he actually did run onto the field, yesterday, to do a little dance, share a little love. He couldn't help himself.

Few people love football the way Leonard Peters does.

Did he ever stop to think that this, yesterday, might have been his last day as a UH football player?

"I've been thinking of that since the first day we started spring," he said.

Yes, this might have been it, and he knows it. Yesterday, no pads, on the sidelines, playing by osmosis, jumping up and down. Throwing his heart into another sub scrimmage might be the last thing he ever does.

He's still waiting to hear, from the NCAA, if he's back next season. If being out for the season thanks to a knee injury against USC in last year's very first game is enough to get a special dispensation from the NCAA. A sixth year.

He doesn't know. No one knows. Reports out of UH's camp have been cautiously optimistic, these last several months. But sixth seasons? The NCAA doesn't just give those things away.

"No," Leonard said of knowing. "We just gotta wait."

He, Nate Ilaoa, Bryan Maneafaiga, Ian Sample. They all might have gone through this spring only toThey all might have gone through this spring only to find out that yesterday's scrimmage was their very last day as UH football players. They're all on the bubble. They all have no idea. They all can only wait.

"Good luck next year," a fan told Ilaoa after an autograph, yesterday.

Maybe. More like, good luck next month.

That's probably when they find out, Peters said. It's like they, too, are waiting for the draft, hoping for that call.

Ilaoa said he won't think about it, can't dwell on it. "I'm just going to work," he said. That's all he'll allow himself to focus on, now.

He's looking good, made some great cuts in non-contact drills.

During the scrimmage, he and Leonard stood side by side. Pads off. Cheering the subs. Soaking it in.

Leonard is thinking about it. He thinks about it all the time. This could be it. Yesterday might have been it.

"I don't take anything for granted, especially when it comes to football," he said. "Any day or time you could get hurt and you could never play football again."

So many little moments. In the locker room, early in the morning. The smell of the grass. Teasing the offense during scrimmages like this. He's savoring every minute.

But then again, he's always savored every minute.

"Every day I come out here, I'm happy to be along with the guys," he said.

"So I don't get my year back, yeah, I would be satisfied with the team that we have this year."

You'd think it would be a slam dunk. Good guy -- he needs just one more class in the fall to graduate, he said -- heady leader. Injured in the first game of the season, against No. 1 USC. Knocked out for the whole year. This is why sixth seasons are invented, you think.

But the NCAA has its rules for a reason, and no one can quite figure out what makes those ivory towers tick. Sixth seasons? They almost never happen. They're almost impossible to get.

This might have been it, on the side, pads off, mouth running, arms conducting. Sharing the joy. College football. A day in the sun.

Yesterday might have been Leonard Peters' last day, and he knows it. It might have ended like this.

You wonder if maybe he should have asked to play in that scrimmage, asked to get in there, just once, one very last time.

"I always do," he said.

"I asked today," he said. Few people love football the way Leonard Peters does.